At the end of May I visited the town of Dusti in southern Tajikistan, close to the border with Afghanistan. It's the administrative centre of Kumsangir district, with a population of around 10,000 people and little sign that the country has succeeded in stabilising its economy after the break-up of the Soviet Union.

There are parks with rusting, long-broken playground rides. The public square is overgrown and the buildings – public and private – are rarely maintained. Children play in the irrigation canals shared with livestock, where women wash clothes and people collect water for drinking. There are signs of the previous communal amenities, but few of them now work. At night the streetlights stay dark and the big old heating pipes no longer pump warmth to the residents in apartment blocks.

Unemployment throughout the country is 30%, and the jobs that are available are badly paid (government-employed doctors and teachers take home between $50 and $100 a month). An estimated 2 million of the country's 7.5 million population, mostly men, have migrated to Russia for work.

And, of course, there is a housing crisis: new buildings are too expensive for the badly paid and unemployed; existing buildings have had no maintenance, and a civil war, frequent earthquakes and landslides have further damaged housing in many areas. Since homes were built, most families have managed only cosmetic repairs – repainting, guttering, perhaps stapling some plastic to the windows to keep out the cold, or bricking up a balcony to create extra room.

One afternoon we visited the apartment block at the technical college. It is the worst in Kumsangir and, I'd hazard a guess, likely the worst in Tajikistan. Before 1992, the three buildings were accommodation for the students of the college but, during the civil war, refugees (or, more technically, internally displaced people, who have very few rights) came to occupy the buildings.

Built very badly in the early 1980s, they are home to roughly 600 people, mostly women and their children whose husbands either died in the war or are working in Russia. It is unlikely that they have the legal rights to their homes.

The roof is in a terrible condition, most families have one room, and the sewerage systems, along with many other building materials, were stolen during the war. The 600 people share four pit latrines (although we suspect that many may have chamber pots in their rooms). Some of the balconies have no railings so people have fallen down in the past. The poorest of the poor live here – people who work at the market, teachers and, presumably, the unemployed.

The director of the college is desperate for change, and the residents, too, are angry. One woman said, "We see foreigners come: they take pictures and nothing changes." Last year, thecollege applied for assistance from the government, but has heard no answer yet. In the best case scenario, the government would give the families land nearby (no one can buy or sell land) and then organisations such as Habitat for Humanity could help them build homes on this land.

To repair the buildings as they stand would be excessively expensive and would keep families in the squalid conditions for longer. Replacing the roof on the three buildings is estimated at 600,000 somoni (more than £80,000).

The goal of land is not impossible, just very, very difficult. A similar request in the north of the country took six years of pressure by the people for the government to grant them land.

The lack of civic responsibility and civic education in Tajikistan is just one more impediment. People there have not yet learned to use their voices and their skills. Perhaps they do not know they have a voice. The women here desperately want their situation to change but, faced with an obstinate and complicated government, it will be a long wait.